Essays on the Gita, First Series (Arya Publishing House, 1922)
The text is shown on its own: no facing layer is held for this issue.
The G ita ans wers them in its later chapters , by a n. anal ysis of Puioisfia^d Ttakriti which brings in new element^very proper to a Vedantic Yoga, but alien to the traditional Sankhya. It speaks of three rather a triple status “oftfie Purusha. The Upanishads in dealing with the truths of Sankhya seem sometimes to speak only of two Purushas. There is one unborn of thrw coloura, says a text, the eternal feminine principle of Pniknti with its three gunas, ever creating ^here are two unborn, two Purushas, of whom on^leaves to and enjoys her, the other abandons her because he has enjoyed all her enjoyments. In another verse they are described as two birds on one tree, eternally yoked companions, one of whom eats the fruits of the tree, — the Purusha in Nature enjoying her cosmos, — the other eats not, but watches his fellow, — the silent Witness, withdrawn from the enjoy- H 113 merit ; when the first sees the second and knows that all is his greatness, then he is delivered from sorrow. The point of view in the two verses is different, but they have a common implication. of the birds is the etepiallyi^il^t, upbound Self ox EurushaJ^y whom all this is extended and he regards th^^osmos he has extended, but is aloof from it ; the other is the P urush a involved in Prakriti. The first ^HsiF’indicates that the "ar^ t be sa me, represent different states, bound and liberate, of the sarne conscious being,-^^^^fbr the second Unborn lias descended into the enjoyment of Nature and withdrawn from her ; the other verse brings out what we would not gather from the former, that in its higher status of unity the self is for eyer^free, inactive, unattached, though it descends in its lower being Into the multiplicity of the creatures of Prakriti and withdraws from it by reversion in any individual creature to the higher status. This theory of the double status of the one conscious soul opens a door ; but the process of the multiplicity of the One is still obscure. T o these two the G ita, developing the thought of other passages in the Upanishads,* a dds y et another^^the supreme, th^UEUshottaina, the . highes t feiirusha, w hose greatness all this creation is. V Thus there are three, the JK^sliam, the Aj^ har^ the y Uaisa^ Kshara,_ the qiobile, the mutable is
• Purushah akshardt paratah parah , — although the Akshara is supreme, there is a supreme Purusha higher than it, says the Upanishad. SANKHYA AND YOGA ^turCi swabhdva, it is the various becoming of the soul ; the PouSi® the multiplicity of the di vine Bei ng ; it is the^J^urusha multiple not apart ffom, but ihjPrakriti.LlAfa hara, the immobil e, the immutable, is the silent and inactive self, it is the unity of the divine Being, Witness of __ Natmie, but not involved in its movement ; it is the ina ctive Purusha free from Prakriti and her worksTXThe the supreme self, who possesses both the immutable unity and the mobile multiplicity* It is by a large mobility and action of Hisjgati^, H^ijeneigy,Jffis wlLand^awer,^ that He mamfests Hhnself in the world a nd by a greater, stillnesi and immobility of His being that He is aloof from it; ye t is He^.as Purushottama above both the aloofness from Nature an<r the attachment to Nature, [jrhis idea of the Purushottama, though continually implied in the Upanishads, is disengaged and definitely brought out by the Gita and has exercised a powerful influence on the later developments of the Indian religous consciousness. It isj^ Jfounc^io^of the highest Bhaktiyoga^ which claims to exceed the rigd definitions of monistic philosophy ; it is at the back of the philosophy of the devotional Puranas.
No commentary for this page under the selected tracks.
There is commentary on page 1.